luizfzs

It's not. Meta did the same thing during Brazil's elections. Left-wing politicians' and influencer's accounts suspended, while right wings' stayed working. Even with the widespread knowledge that the right is notorious for using bot accounts to inflate followers and to generate engagement.

The big tech companies are on the side of power and money.

Lobbying

The 2 main differences between our economy and Monopoly is that 1) in ours, some people start with properties and more money in hand and 2) a Monopoly game takes less time to end.

Complicity assumes every venues has the same options, but they don't.

Pearl Jam tried to tour without Ticketmaster in 1994 but several venues turned them down because of contracts. They ended up signing with TM a few years later. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/pearl-jam-taki...

When signing with TM is survival and not signing means your venue sits empty or your band has a hard time booking large venues, that's not a free choice. That's just coercion.

My take is that scandals can make some people realize that the Church is fallible, which can lead people to question about the legitimacy of such religion. e.g. if the church representatives can be corrupt, what if their other actions also weren't in service of God?

My point is that once you see a sort of contradiction between words and action, it may make one deeply reflect on it.

Unions only exist because there is a huge power imbalance between employer and employee. They attempt to balance the field.

In doing so, companies may lose their leverage and are forced to actually negotiate. This is often painted as blackmailing, but it's the same thing they do to employees. Bosses often go with "we're doing you a favor. If you don't want this job, I have a replacement for you".

When their power and leverage vanishes, they see it as being blackmailed, when in reality they are just being forced to play a fair game.

This thread has several stories of unions "keeping lazy workers", etc. I can't deny your experiences. But what about the thousands of companies that violate Labor Laws? Why are we not talking about these stories? e.g. https://www.epi.org/publication/unlawful-employer-opposition...

When you push people hard enough, they will fight back. In fighting back, the corporations that had the leverage will feel attacked by losing their power.

While 68% of workers approve unions (https://news.gallup.com/poll/694472/labor-union-approval-rel...) there are only 9% of them that actually belong to a union. That's a huge discrepancy. It can be explained by the immense difficulty in forming one due to illegal corporation practices and laws that make it difficult.

That's the greatest contradiction in our current system.

Capital accumulation on the hands of a few and the rest of us won't be able to afford what they offer.

Trade in US Dollars with other countries need to go through US banks, which can be subject to prohibitions, which can be done by political motivation.

Also, the issue of the PetroDollar complicates things internationally as well. US throws a tantrum when small countries (or countries it can bully) trade Oil in other currencies. That is very important to keep themselves relevant and with some control over international trades.

Yet another aspect is that if any goods, regardless of who is selling it, contains more than 10% of components, technology, produced by a US company, such seller requires an US Export license to trade such goods with Cuba.

So it's not as simple as that.

https://shippingsolutionssoftware.com/blog/products-subject-...

Trade in US Dollars with other countries need to go through US banks, which can be subject to prohibitions, which can be done by political motivation.

Also, the issue of the PetroDollar complicates things internationally as well. US throws a tantrum when small countries (or countries it can bully) trade Oil in other currencies. That is very important to keep themselves relevant and with some control over international trades.

Yet another aspect is that if any goods, regardless of who is selling it, contains more than 10% of components, technology, produced by a US company, such seller requires an US Export license to trade such goods with Cuba.

So it's not as simple as that.

https://shippingsolutionssoftware.com/blog/products-subject-...

The real story may be that even despite heavy lobbying, they are trying to do something that has the potential to benefit the population, with the added benefit of reducing some of the load on health care system caused by this.

As we know, smoking can cause lots of problems, including for babies if the mother smokes during pregnancy.

> US laws apply to US citizens and companies.

You're right. But trade in US Dollars with other countries need to go through US banks, which can be subject to prohibitions, which can be done by political motivation.

Also, the issue of the PetroDollar complicates things internationally as well. US throws a tantrum when small countries (or countries it can bully) trade Oil in other currencies. That is very important to keep themselves relevant and with some control over international trades.

Yet another aspect is that if any goods, regardless of who is selling it, contains more than 10% of components, technology, produced by a US company, such seller requires an US Export license to trade such goods with Cuba.

So it's not as simple as that.

https://shippingsolutionssoftware.com/blog/products-subject-...

AFAIK, they're not limiting imports. They are heavily embargoed since 1960s, which also affects other countries' abilities to trade with them, under the threat of themselves being sanctioned.

Also, the health impacts on us, by breathing the fumes of fossil fuel power plants, etc. The cost of fossil fuel is much more than a price tag in the electricity bill.

Having a roof above one's head should be a right, not a privilege. It becomes even more of a privilege when people view real estate as investment. They want to profit. For example, in Toronto, there are lots of apartments that are 'unrentable' because they were so badly designed that it's awful. They were built for investors to sell. Think of a studio costing 600k. Who wants to pay 600k for a studio? Like, where would someone be in life that they can spend 600k? I'd assume the majority would be married. They won't want a studio. Values are reversed. It's profit over welfare, unfortunately.

Lots of people that went to shelters prefer the streets because of several issues with people in the shelter. Violence, substance abuse, theft, etc. It's not like they prefer to be on the streets but sometimes that's the best option.

I'm not saying that this is the case for everyone on the streets; I'm saying that it is a fact that it happens and some people prefer the streets over shelters because of that.

My gut feeling (with bias) is that most people don't think about things around them because society is in a constant state of hurry. If someone is wondering 'how did zoning laws came to be?', they are not being productive. And our western society seems to value the individuals based on how much they produce.

The person working, or commuting to/from work, is tired and doesn't have the energy to ponder about the world around us.

The 'first researchers' if I may call them that, were the Ionians, a Greek island of merchants, that had the time and resources to pursue the interests of the mind.

That's of course, only part of the story. The other part, I'd say, is to have the habit of questioning and wondering about the world around us. That comes with practice. And ironically, lots of parents indirectly discourage their kids from asking questions by becoming annoyed at how many 'whys' their kids ask.

Our educational system is also discouraging of such way of thinking. It's mostly a production line of workers.

I hate these types of headlines that omit an important part of the context: The study was conducted in mice. We're not mice.

The results are encouraging but in no way conclusive for humans. They open for the opportunity for broader studies, studies in humans. That's all they do.

I'd suggest a different approach. I'm not sure how feasible it is for your case but just my 2 cents.

Community building would probably be way more efficient if done in person. That would make getting to know each other way easier. It would allow 'water fountain' type of interactions; which you usually don't have online.

So, my 2 cents would be to find a park, or something else public (weather permitting) and gather there. It could also bring passerbys to get curious and gather more people.

Not everything has to have a technological solution. In-person interactions should be more important for community building.

With a side of car-centric city planning where shops are often far from where people live, so everyone just drive everywhere.

Also, with a pinch of pedestrian-hostile design, where some places don't even have sidewalks.

But is the majority of the population thriving?

It is very misleading (at best) to say the economy is strong when a good chunk of the population live paycheck to paycheck.

A handful of companies are thriving, but barely any of its employees.

Hello!

I came across this new paper, INTEGER PARTITIONS DETECT THE PRIMES [1] from July, 2024, but I don't have enough knowledge to even read it. I wonder if an implementation of this method would provide any speed benefits compared to PRP.

Great work!

[1] https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.06451

The fact they do doesn't give any legitimacy to their actions.

South America is not the NATO's (or anyone's) political experiment playground.

Does that mean the US is also not a democracy because the supreme court judges are also appointed by the president, just like in Brazil?

> Our representatives move to impeach this guy as demanded by the citizens they represent, then they back out at the last second. Their lawyers advised them to back out due to the risk of retaliation by the supreme court. How can you call this a democracy, when our elected representatives are clearly cowering in fear of an unelected judiciary?

If that is true, he should definitely be removed. I definitely concede that he is overreaching in some decisions. I don't always agree with them. However, if a political actor says they are going to invade Planalto to overturn the government, that is an attack to democracy, and protecting the constitution is exactly the attribution of the supreme court.

Freedom of speech in Brazil, as far as I know, ends when you attack democracy. Democracy is the most valued thing in the constitution.

However, the noisy far right-wing in Brazil is very dramatic and will create arguments that are not falsifiable just to pretend they have an argument.

Source: I'm Brazilian.

The only democratic way for a foreign agent to meddle in another country's politics is by being elected.

Everything else is just bullshit.

What you are saying is that anyone can buy a media platform, whatever platform it is, and play 'arbiter' of truth? Because that's he is doing. He has no right to defy a judge's ruling. He's not a Brazilian citizen. He has no legal representation there. His company has no legal representation there.

His only standing is his ego, which is pretty fragile, given how much of a cry-baby he is.

"is Brazil doing anything to clamp down on far left support for Venezuela?"

They don't get to do anything. As much as one may dislike another country's political system, all they get to do is carry on with life.

No country has the right to meddle with another's politics. No foreign person has to right meddle with another's politics.

That's the imperialist view of the world. That's not how it should be.

I'm amending this because I've found that MM is commonly used in finance, so it's not like the author chose to go rogue.

Also

> It's so easy to stick to international units, folks. Please. PLEASE!

should be to stick to the language's usage of units. Not necessarily international units.

Even though the comment doesn't exactly apply now that I know MM can be used in finance, but I wanted to correct it to have a broader coverage.

This somewhat misses the point of my comment, tough. The post was written in English, so one should stick to how English represents millions.

Based on that, I can say `1.000.000` is equal to MM because Brazil uses `.` to separate groups of 3 digits, and `,` to separate integer and decimal parts.

My point is to stick to using the units the language you're writing on uses.

Btw, thanks for explaining the origin of MM! I definitely didn't know that.

I know it is pedantic, but could someone please enlighten me as to where does MM means millions?

It's so easy to stick to international units, folks. Please. PLEASE!

100%. This is a horrible and misleading headline.

They should really be ashamed of having such a headline.

I'm impressed with the range of some detectors. Some lightnings in Japan are being picked up by detectors in the US' east coast, or detector in New Zealand picking up a lighting in North Africa.

Sorry to hijack. Cliff Stoll the astronomer?

I loved your book! I loved the way it reads. So fluid and interesting.